Colonial - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

The Simon Huntington, Jr. House (1690)

In 1688, Simon Huntington, Sr. granted an acre of land in Norwich to his son, Simon. According to Mary E. Perkins in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895),

This is then recorded as the home-lot of Simon Huntington, Jun., who was born in Saybrook, 1659, and married in 1683, Lydia, daughter of John Gager of Norwich. Like his father, Simon, 2nd, played an important part in the history of the town, serving in many civil offices, and in 1696, succeeding Simon, Sr., in the office of deacon of the church, which he held until his death in 1736. In 1704, he calls himself Simon Huntington (cooper.) In 1706, he was granted liberty to keep “a house of public entertainment.” His house, occupying a central position, was honored as the magazine for the defensive weapons of the town, and as late as 1720, a report, made to the town, states that it contained a half barrel of powder, 3 pounds of bullets, and 400 flints.

The Huntington Tavern remained in the family until 1782, when it is sold to Thomas Carey, who then sells it to Joseph Carew, a merchant. Again quoting from Perkins,

Capt. Joseph Carew perhaps tears down the old Huntington house, and builds the one now standing on the lot [in 1782-83], but it is also possible that instead of entirely destroying the old homestead, for which, being of Huntington blood, (though not a descendant of Simon, 2nd), he might have had some attachment, he may have altered, or added to the old framework, but this, of course, at this late day, we have no means of knowing. He also purchases the rest of the Huntington land, facing on the Green, except one small piece of one rod frontage, which is sold to Gardner Carpenter. The long, low, rambling house has the appearance of being of much older date than 1783. It was occupied by Capt. Joseph Carew until his death, and then by his daughter, Eunice, and son-in-law, Joseph Huntington. […] It has been occupied until recently [1895] as the First Church parsonage.

While there was later enlargement, the earliest parts of the house date to around 1690 and it is considered to be one of Norwichtown‘s surviving seventeenth century houses.

Whittlesey Homestead (1760)

Eliphalet Whittlesey (1679-1757) was born in Saybrook and later settled in the Newington section of Wethersfield, purchasing land from his older brother Jabez. Around 1709, he built a small one-story, two-room house at 20 Rod Highway, now 461 Maple Hill Avenue. His son, Eliphalet II, was born in 1714 and eventually left town with his wife and ten of his children in 1761. Eliphalet III later settled in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Another son, Lemuel Whittlesey, remained in Newington, constructing the current Whittlesey Homestead sometime between 1758 and 1772. The house was inherited by his son, Asaph, and then by Asaph’s daughter Delia, who married Homer Camp. Their son was Lemuel Whittlesey Camp. The house has had many owners over the years.

The Aaron Chapin House (1779)

Aaron Chapin became a notable maker of furniture in the late eighteenth century. He was a second cousin of the famous East Windsor cabinetmaker, Eliphalet Chapin and worked in his cousin’s shop between 1774 and 1783. Chapin built his house in East Windsor Hill (now in South Windsor) in 1779, just south of his cousin’s home. Aaron Chapin later established a large shop in Hartford, which was the area’s leading cabinetmaking establishment in the first decade of the nineteenth century, being particularly dominant in the production of Federal-style sideboards.

Gurdon Whiting House (1786)

The land in West Hartford, where Gurdon Whiting would build a house around 1786, was originally part of a grant to Rev. Joseph Haynes, minister of First Church in Hartford and the son of John Haynes, first Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. Haynes’ daughter, Mary, inherited the property. She married Roswell Saltonstall, the son of Connecticut governor Gurdon Saltonstall. She later married Thomas Clap, President of Yale. Mary, who died in New Haven in 1769, left her land in the West Division of Hartford to her daughter, Mary Whiting, who deeded the land to her son, Gurdon Saltonstall Whiting in 1778. He built the Whiting House in the 1780s, at the time of his marriage. It remained in his family into the 1920s, when it was purchased by Philip Lawler, who had been mayor of West Hartford in 1915. The house, which has survived nearly intact, was in the Lawler family into the 1980s.

Capt. George Latimer House (1770)

The house of Capt. George Latimer is on Main Street in Wethersfield. It was built around 1770 by Samuel Talcott. Capt. Latimer owned the house in the nineteenth century and died by drowning in 1863. He was racing another ship on the Connecticut River back to Wethersfield at the time and had decided to take the shallower west channel of Wright’s Island. His boat ran aground and he was “walking” or kedging it (a method of hauling a ship in shallow water by laying a lighter kedge anchor attached to the ship by a rope and pulling the ship up to the anchor; the process is repeated until the ship is free from shallow water). Capt. Latimer was in a smaller boat, attempting to cast anchor and pull his ship, when an anchor chain caught his leg and pulled him under. At his funeral, his lifelike appearance made many believe he wasn’t really dead (and interestingly, it was said that no water had been found in his lungs).

(more…)

The Gardner Carpenter House (1793)

In 1793, Gardner Carpenter, Norwich postmaster, purchased a house in Norwichtown which had been built around 1740 by André Richard, a wig-maker. Carpenter removed the earlier house and replaced it with the current brick one. Carpenter was a merchant and ship-owner who died in 1815, having lost most of his property to disasters at sea. The house was then sold to Joseph Carew Huntington in 1816. Soon after, he added a wood third story and a gambrel roof to the home. Joseph Huntington moved to New York in 1834 and the house was sold in 1841. Over the years, various one-story additions have been made to the rear of the house.

The Joshua Prior House (1766)

In Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895), Mary E. Perkins writes of a property along Washington Street:

Here Joshua Prior builds a house, perhaps about 1766, the time of his marriage to Sarah Hutchins of Killingly, and resides here for a time, but in 1789 he is living on the road near Elderkin’s bridge, and in 1790 he sells this house and land to Gideon Birchard, who also buys in 1795 a small piece of adjoining land (1 1/2 rods frontage) of his son Elisha, who has purchased the property on the north. Gideon Birchard (b. 1735), was the son of John and Jane (Hyde) Birchard and great-grandson of John Birchard, the first town clerk of Norwich. He married in 1757, Eunice Abel, daughter of Capt. Joshua and Jerusha (Frink) Abel, and had eight children. He was a carpenter by trade, and before 1799 moves to Whitestown, New York, and sells, in 1799, his house and land to Jeremiah Griffing. The house is still often called by old residents the Griffing house. In 1858, it is sold by the Griffing heirs to Daniel W. Coit, who sells it in 1871 to William Alfred Jones, who still resides here [William Alfred Jones died in 1900].